Brian Lawley - 42 Rules of Product Management. Learn the Rules of Product Management from Leading Experts around the World

Learn the Rules of Product Management from Leading Experts from Around the World

By Brian Lawley
and Greg Cohen

E-mail: info@superstarpress.com
20660 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 210
Cupertino, CA 95014

Copyright 2010, 2012 by Brian Lawley and Greg Cohen

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher.

Published by Super Star Press, a Happy About imprint 20660
Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 210, Cupertino, CA 95014
http://42rules.com

2nd Edition: November 2012
1st Edition (3rd Printing): March 2012
1st Edition (2nd Printing): November 2010
1st Edition (1st Printing): October 2010
Paperback ISBN (2nd Edition): 978-1-60773-091-0 (1-60773-091-X)
Paperback ISBN (1st Edition): 978-1-60773-086-6 (1-60773-086-3)
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60773-087-3 (1-60773-087-1)
Place of Publication: Silicon Valley, California, USA
Library of Congress Number: 2010938034

Trademarks

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks orservice marks have been appropriately capitalized. Happy About,nor any of its imprints, can attest to the accuracy of this information.Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting thevalidity of any trademark or service mark.

Warning and Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and asaccurate as possible. The information provided is on an "as is" basis.The author(s), publisher, and its agents assume no responsibility forerrors or omissions nor assume liability or responsibility to any personor entity with respect to any loss or damages arising from the use ofinformation contained herein.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the product managers who arepassionate about bringing great new products to market.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the all star team of product managementexperts worldwide who contributed their time and wisdom to thisproject. Without them this book would not be possible. By sharing yourknowledge and wisdom, you have helped to further the profession ofproduct management.

A special thanks to the 280 Group team and to Jillian McLaughlin forproject managing the book. We also want to thank our editor LauraLowell, our production manager Liz Tadman, and our copy editorDeneene Bell.

Lastly, we would like to express our appreciation to our families fortheir support and patience during the creation of this book.

C o n t e n t s

I n t r o

Back when I started my career as a productmanager, things were quite different than they aretoday. There were no books or training courses.There were no product management associations,blogs, or newsletters. Email was just in its infancy,and the World Wide Web was merely anexperiment being conducted by a small group ofelite technologists. The only way that you learnedhow to be a great product manager was by trial and(often painful) error. Occasionally, if you werelucky, you would have a manager who could teachyou the subtleties and mentor you (I had severaland they made a huge difference in my career).

My, how things have changed. There are all kindsof resources available to help you learn theprofession of product management. Productmanagement has grown up; companies arerecognizing what a key role it plays in the successor failure of their products and their overall results.And along with all of this, there are many productmanagement experts who have emerged that areenthusiastic about sharing what they have learnedabout the profession.

The goal of this book is to expose you to thewisdom and knowledge from a group of the world'sleading product management experts. Among thecontributors, there are leading authors, professors,CEOs and vice presidents, bloggers, consultants,trainers, and even a few salespeople andengineers. In total, there are over five centuries ofcollected wisdom represented here.

To put the book together, we reached out to a largenumber of people throughout the world. (If you werenot included, please don't be offended. Email usand let us know so we can include you in futureprojects like this.) The rules were submitted over atwo-month period. Each rule stands on its own, andthey are not in any particular order in the book.

It is our sincere hope that the rules in this book willhelp make your product management career moreenjoyable and more successful. And equallyimportant, we hope that it will lead to you shippingproducts that your customers love and that arewildly successful and highly profitable.

Brian Lawley
CEO and Founder, 280 Group
October 2010

R u l e

"Learn the rules so you know how to breakthem properly."
Dalai Lama

Greg Cohen, Senior
Principal Consultant, 280 Group

The best product managers I have known are independent people who are passionate about theirproducts and have deep conviction about how tomake them succeed. Sometimes this meansbending the rules, disregarding the advice of management, and ignoring conventional wisdom. Thisis important for progress. We must always look atthings in new ways. For often, true innovationrequires that we challenge the status quo in thecreation of new products that deliver significantlymore value to the customer than existing alternatives. If we are fortunate, have done our homework,and are right in our conviction, we can even createan entirely new market. Some successful examplesof rule breakers include:

Henry Ford creating affordable automobiles: In 1908, Henry Ford produced an automobile that was differentiated in onecharacteristicit was the first "affordable" automobile. The price continued to drop eachyear and within ten years, 50 percent of cars inthe United States were Ford Model Ts.i
Frederick Smith of FedEx with guaranteedovernight delivery of goods: Fred Smithlaunched his overnight delivery service in April1973 with a twenty-five-city network. On its firstday, the company delivered 186 packages.Smith worked hard to grow the company'svolume and network, but also had to contendwith a postal monopoly that prevented FedExfrom delivering packages and ill-suited airlineregulations that first restricted the company toflying only small jets.ii The company struggledto have enough cash to survive during theseearly years. Federal Express became profitable in 1975 and was finally allowed to fly large jets in 1977 when aircargo was deregulated. Today FedEx is a household brand withworldwide operations and its fleet travels nearly five hundred thousandmiles per day.iii
Masura Ibuka of Sony with the transistor radio: Although not theinventor of the transistor radio, Masura Ibuka saw its potential andseized upon the opportunity to license the technology from AT&Twhen they made it available in 1952. Ibuka and partner Akio Moritaconvinced Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)to finance the $25,000 licensing fee and then went to work creating thefirst "pocket" radio under the Sony brand.iv Sony repeated a similarfeat of miniaturization in 1978 when it introduced its Walkman line ofportable cassette players.v